Billionaires now run Texas

The Texas government, a public trust since the fall of the Alamo, has today been purchased at an affordable price by donors of enormous wealth who want the Republican Party-led government to satisfy their obscure motives.

These motivated billionaires spend a manageable portion of their sustainable wealth every year to reserve prime seats alongside constitutional power. They are fundamentally superior to us, we who innocently believe that there is a level playing field in a vanishing Texas democracy that is a matter of “one man, one vote.”

What do these wealthy donors want? This much is clear: They want funding cut from public schools; their biblical interpretation to inform government policy; and women to give birth every time they become pregnant, regardless of the circumstances. There is more on their wish list, as we will surely discover in the coming 89th legislative session.

Their elected statewide GOP candidates, elected by only 3% of the Texas population, historically win in November because well-financed incumbency is hard to overcome and no Democrat has won statewide since 1994.

Gone are the days when career-oriented politicians aligned the interests of their wealthy donors with those of the public. Meanwhile, the Texas Republican Party has completely sold out to its key fringe groups, pursuing indefensible, extremist policies, making outrageous campaign contributions, and spawning a corrupt, authoritarian energy that has darkened the heart of Texas.

Texas, along with only eight other states, allows unlimited campaign contributions to all nonjudicial state candidates. This means that there is no limit to the check that a wealthy person can write to influence the election of a legislative or executive office.

Last December, for example, Jeff Yass, a Pennsylvania billionaire interested in promoting school vouchers for Texas, wrote Gov. Greg Abbott a $6 million check to help Abbott defeat rural lawmakers who opposed them opposed the measure. Last summer, a PAC led by Tim Dunn, a billionaire lay preacher from the Midlands who has funded several of Attorney General Ken Paxton's statewide campaigns, paid Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick $3 million, six weeks before Patrick presided over Paxton's Senate impeachment trial.

After the 2021 winter storm devastated Texas, causing tens of billions of dollars in property damage and economic losses as well as hundreds of deaths, Kelcy Warren, CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, a natural gas producer and pipeline owner whose company made huge gains during the blackout by selling fuel at unprecedented prices Abbott presented a check for $1 million.

There are many such stories. It is high time we reform our scandalous state government. The best way forward is to impose campaign finance caps.

A large majority of states limit campaign contributions, as we do in our federal elections. Federal candidates for Congress can receive up to $3,300 per person per election cycle; The cap for statewide candidates in Florida is $3,000 per donor per election and for legislative candidates the cap is $1,000 per donor per election. Wisconsin limits statewide incumbents to $20,000 per donor for the entire four-year term; Connecticut limits individual donors to $1,000 per state Senate candidate per election and $250 per state House of Representatives candidate. Hawaii limits out-of-state contributions to 30% of a candidate's contributions. The country's latest convert after decades of allowing unlimited donations is Oregon, which now caps individual campaign contributions at $3,300 after Gov. Tina Kotek signed the landmark bill on March 20.

So what about Texas?

With 20 television markets and 31 million residents, Texas is huge by any measure. The Dallas-Fort Worth market is the fifth largest market in the country with approximately 2,713,380 TV households. 22 million Texans are of voting age, and legislative and state candidates want to reach as many of them as possible to register and vote. It is expensive to advertise on broadcast and cable television and to communicate with voters digitally as well as by mail, telephone and text message, and that experience is shared by all candidates across the state of Texas. What isn't fair is that wealthy sponsors decide the winner by overfunding their protégés and safely crossing the finish line. No wonder some voters feel like their vote doesn't count.

It is perverse to shower candidates with grotesquely inflated campaign contributions and then, once in office, expect them to reign supreme in government spending. I'm confident that anyone brave enough to run for office will find a way to woo Texas voters on a reasonable budget now that campaign finance caps are passed. The U.S. and Texas constitutions allow legislatures to set limits on campaign contributions, and especially since the Texas constitution prohibits a statewide, citizen-led initiative, the Texas Legislature should take up the issue in its next session and debate it vigorously, expeditiously enact and enact Provide appropriate limits on campaign contributions to the Governor in time for the 2026 elections.

Joe Jaworski is a Texas attorney and mediator and former mayor of Galveston.

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